FateZero Hope
by RandomNPC247
Summary: When Kariya learned of the fate that Tokiomi had given Sakura over to, he went to his estranged family and begged for a chance to save her. Zouken, still a tad annoyed with Kariya, agrees to allow him a chance to save Sakura by winning the Holy Grail... without any help. Armed with only a desperate wish to save someone as a catalyst, He summons a hero in red and black... EMIYA.
1. Chapter Zero

Expanded summery: _ When Kariya Matou learned of the fate that Tokiomi had given Sakura over to, he went to his estranged family and begged for a chance to save her. Zouken, still a tad annoyed that Kariya had refused his heritage in his youth, agrees to allow Kariya a chance to save Sakura by winning the Holy Grail... without any real help from him save access to the library. With almost no knowledge of magic, atrophied circuits that won't be able to support a servant at anywhere close to full power for any length of time, and only a desperate wish to save someone as a catalyst, it truly seems that there's zero hope. Then, he summons a hero in red and black..._

* * *

Chapter Zero

* * *

Despair.

Kariya had thought that he knew it most keenly when the love of his life, Aoi, had married Tokiomi instead of him. He had thought he knew it when his brother had declared that they were siblings no more, and as he watched his brother drown himself in alcohol in grief after the death of his wife.

Kariya had never felt despair quite so keenly though, as when he met Aoi in the park that day. She had given two daughters to her husband, Tokiomi Tosaka, both wonderful little angels with dark hair and blue eyes. The two of them had been near inseparable for as long as he had known them, and he had taken to loving Rin and Sakura almost as though they were his own. That day however, only Rin was with Aoi; Sakura was strangely absent.

At first he had thought she was merely sick or something, but when he inquired into her health, he had learned the truth. Tokiomi had given Sakura away. The man was unworthy of being the father of those two girls regardless, but to split them up was a sin he could scarcely describe. Worst of all though was _who_ Sakura had been given to: Matou Zouken.

Aoi regretted that she wouldn't have Sakura with her everyday anymore, but even so, she supported her husband in his decisions and hoped for Sakura's happiness in her new home. She didn't know why Kariya had left his family behind and abandoned the Matou name; she didn't know why he refused to learn his family magecraft; how he ran in fear for his body, mind, and soul from the corrupt and vile things that his 'Uncle' called training.

He didn't have the heart to tell her anymore. If only he had revealed the extent of the horrors that Zouken visited upon people, maybe this wouldn't have happened. If he had gone to the Clock tower and convinced the enforcers to destroy the monster; if he hadn't been afraid of him... None of that mattered now though. He could not rewind time and correct his mistakes, only do his best to set right the consequences of his actions. All he could do now was try to save Sakura, by any means possible.

* * *

He stood in front of the door, hesitant to knock. The mansion was the same as last he had seen it, years before when he fled his home, and he knew what he would find inside. Zouken already knew he was back, alerted by his familiars or his bounded field for sure, but he would not come until Kariya swallowed his pride and knocked. It was simply the sort of person his 'Uncle' was.

Finally he rapped his fist on the door, the sound ringing in his ears in the unnatural quiet that surrounded the Matou house. He had come this far, so he wasn't going to turn back now. The door opened without a sound, inviting him into the place he had once called home. Hesitantly, he stepped in, praying Zouken would at least listen to him and give him a chance, rather than throwing him to the worms for having left.

Lights flared to life in the sitting room off to his left, and a frail sounding voice called out. "Oh, Kariya. So good of you to visit your dear old uncle. Come in, come in and have a seat. I'm curious as to what brings you here."

Fear and disgust ran through Kariya's body at the sound of Zouken's voice, but he followed the instructions, as had been ingrained into him in his childhood. The small, bald and wrinkled fiend sat on a chair with a cane in hand, looking for all the world like a harmless man on the verge of death. Kariya knew better. Amusement and carefully disguised sadistic glee radiated from the old man, sending yet more shudders through him, and setting his instincts buzzing. _Tread carefully,_ they warned.

Even if he wanted to scream, to cry out in rage and demand Sakura to be returned safely, he knew that would only lead to his own death. Instead, he bowed respectfully and sat himself on the edge of a second chair. "Uncle," he started, marshaling his courage, "I have just learned of Sakura's adoption into our family. I am here to request that you spare her from the training of a Matou magus, and either return her to her family, or allow me to take her myself."

Zouken was silent for a beat, before barking out a laugh. "Ha! You, the child who fled from this family and refused my teachings and gifts, would ask me to give up on such fine materials? The girl is the only hope of continuing the Matou line as mages at this point. What do you have that you could possibly offer me in recompense for that, boy?"

And that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? Even so, he had to try. "I'll come back to the family. I'll train and become a magus, just like you wanted. I'll marry whoever you want, and I'll give you a new generation of Matou magi." It was all he had to offer: his life.

Zouken's toothless smile was answer enough. "No." It wasn't enough. "You are too old to start your training with any chance of success, boy. Even as a child, when your potential was undiminished, you were not as valuable as Sakura. She comes from a strong line, with powerful circuits and and a rare element."

In other words, even his life was not payment enough to save Sakura. In that one moment, Kariya cursed his younger self for not trying to learn magecraft seriously. Even if he had run, he still had his circuits, and he still knew the basics of magecraft. He could have tried starting from scratch with what little he knew of his family's magic, coming up with a way to fight Zouken.

However, he hadn't done anything like that. Fearing magic from his Uncle's twisted examples, he had shunned it entirely for over a decade now, bordering on two. Even if he wanted to fight for Sakura, there was nothing he could do. He was at Zouken's mercy once more, as though he had never escaped.

In that moment, something threatened to die in him, to give up and simple stop trying to go on: Hope. But then, Zouken spoke again. "Hmm, yes. Well, let it never be said that I am not generous to my descendants, boy." Could it be, that he still had a chance? "There is one way you could convince me to give up on her."

Like a dying fire given fuel, Kariya's eyes brightened once more. Zouken gave a dry and raspy laugh before continuing. "Indeed, boy, you might remember what is about to return to Fuyuki. No? Well, no mater; the Holy Grail War is coming up again, and I have no one to enter it for me. Smart lad that you are, I'm sure you can see where this is going?"

The Holy Grail War. A battle royal between seven magi and their seven summoned Servants, a battle of Heroes of old for the sake of a Wish. The chances of survival in such a thing were slim at best, and the chances of winning for one such as him were nearly non-existent, even with help. However, even if the chances were slim, he'd take them.

Zouken cut him off before he could say anything, reading him without effort. "Good, good. You still have some of that old determination and fire that let you go against me in your youth. Then here are the terms: You retrieve the Grail for me, and in exchange, Sakura will be yours to do with as you please.

"With the Grail, I'll achieve perfect immortality, and mastery over the third magic while I'm at it, perhaps. Thus, I'll have no need for descendants or untrained children to be turned into my tools." Zouken stood up, and started walking towards the stairs leading up. "I'll even provide you the means to prepare. You'll have access to the old house and my library for the time leading up to the war. Don't expect me to help with the catalyst or your training though. You gave up the right to such things years ago."

Honestly, it was more than he could expect, yet still no where near what he needed. Even so, Matou Kariya swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to lessen the burden on Sakura, and to save her from her cruel fate. With that oath in mind, he followed the horror he called 'Uncle' up to the family library to begin his studies anew.

* * *

Matou Zouken walked down to his workshop, his spirits higher than he had expected. Truly, fate was favoring him, gifting him with such things one after another. He did not expect Kariya to win, or even to provide more than a token resistance to the other masters in the war, but if he played things right, it would hardly matter.

At the worst, Kariya would have his spirit crushed completely in his struggle, providing Zouken some much needed amusement as he watched on. He could slowly break the boy with his every failure until the boy didn't even think before crawling to him, begging for help. A dry chuckle echoed off the stone walls of the crypt beneath the Matou home. Such a sight it would be, and his suffering, all for that girl's sake, would help to break her psyche for him so much quicker.

On the other hand, if he somehow came close to winning, Zouken could easily steal his servant from him, sacrifice him as a pawn to finish off his last enemies, and then claim the grail himself from the shadows. Depending on what sort of servant was summoned, Kariya might even be able to win, actually handing him the grail himself. What delicious humor that would be, to see one who hated him so grant him the means to reach immortality.

What a fool he had raised.

"Now struggle and squirm for me, boy. Wallow in despair, wade through sin, and writhe under grief and self-recrimination. Fight til your last desperate gasp of air for me, boy, and finally serve a useful purpose. Gyeh-heh-heh-heh."

The sound of a swarm of insects scurrying across stone and buzzing through the air at once filled the room, blending into the man's laughter until they were one and the same.


	2. Chapter one: Return to Zero

Author Notes: Right, Disclaimer - I do not own or profit from the characters or setting used in this story. Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night Belong to Type Moon. Enjoy the story.

* * *

Across the lands, various individuals had been called. Each was sought out for their own reasons, each with something burning deep within their hearts.

In a snow covered land, within a castle was a man who wanted to save everyone, to end the suffering he had seen in his life...

In an English tower and in a Japanese forest were a teacher and student who could not abide each other, yet both sought recognition and glory...

In a mansion overlooking the city of Fuyuki, an empty man who sought purpose and a arrogant man who wished to finish his ancestor's work stood together...

In the sewers was a murderer simply seeking bloodshed and death, wishing for an even more beautiful sort of image of slaughter...

And in a park in Fuyuki was a man who had lost nearly all hope, despairing yet still able to make a single wish; a wish for a hero who could save someone dear to him...

The grail heard these hearts' wishes, and responded with its own; a wish for amusement, for destruction and despair, for hope and salvation, for a clash of light and dark.

A call was sent out to the Throne, and Heroes were called to the side of the seven wishers across the lands.

* * *

In a location somewhere slightly outside of time and space, a man in red and black sat in a meditative pose. His hands were gripping the hilts of a pair of curved swords; one white, one black. The sky above him, filled with enormous gears eternally turning, was tinted red and clouded with smoke, but rays of light from the eternally setting sun seemed to be breaking through more and more recently. Or was it a new dawn in this bleak and desolate landscape?

The man was atop a hill, swords scattered in the cracked red earth all around him, his white hair blowing in a breeze which carried sparks and embers from some distant forge. He smiled, faintly, for what he was sure was the first time in decades. His path was not quite the one he would have chosen still, and the duties forced on him by Alaya were still abominable in his eyes, but he was not fully drowning in regret anymore.

Maybe he still regretted things some, but he had a new resolve within his soul which burned brighter than before. The weight of his existence seemed somehow greater, even as he himself felt lighter as well, and he wondered if this was close to how true heroic spirits felt within the Throne. It was something he could get used to; not desiring his own destruction constantly.

He had not taken his hand off of the hilts of his two swords for a long, long time, and he had changed in the place of isolation which disallowed change. First he had grown hateful and disgusted with his fate, then resentful of Humanity and self-loathing in the extreme, and then truly world-weary and cynical. Finally though, he was starting to wrap back around to feeling... proud in a way.

His ability to change so much was a curious condition, likely shared only by a select few Heroes in the throne. For him, the ability stemmed from the nature of his inner world.

Within his soul, every weapon he saw was perfectly recorded. Not simply their abilities and their legends, but their crafting, the concept of their creation, and the entire history of the object. By allowing himself to sympathize with a weapon, he could view its history, almost as though he were the weapon himself. With the particular weapons he held, it was slightly different though.

He had never seen the original Kanshou and Bakuya, but rather had originally copied the replicas of them which his future self had used. Over many battles and hardships, he had reached the point where his ability to create those two swords was equal to those he had once seen, and thus could be copied anew by his past self to close the loop. As a result, the Kanshou and Bakuya that he held, for all that they had the history of the originals faithfully reproduced in them, were intricately tied to his own life and history. Looking through them was like looking through his own eyes, and living their history was the same as living his own.

His internal world of Unlimited Blade Works was outside of the influence of Gaia and Alaya, and when he was incarnated as a Counter Guardian, or summoned for some task, each blade his copied self saw was still added to his true self's world. With them came their histories, but more importantly, with them came an update to Kanshou and Bakuya's history. Then, with the update of his favored weapons came his own history and memories.

In this way, he could synchronize his true self with his summoned selves, creating a feedback loop that left the two mentally the same. It was through this that he had seen hell countless times as a Counter Guardian. It was through this that he had planned to force a double paradox perpetrated in reality to affect his true self outside of reality, and break his contract with Alaya. And now it was through this exploitation of his abilities that he had found himself once more, by living through the fifth Holy Grail War again a few times over.

With a renewed will, he would constantly fight against fate to try to be able to save even just one more life than would otherwise be saved.

With the affirmation of that wish, the Heroic Spirit known as Counter Guardian Emiya felt a tugging at his soul, and his consciousness was pulled away to a new mission, the idea of his existence found suited to a task, and a container made for his existence to fill.

* * *

Kariya looked over his circle one last time, hoping to better his chances through a perfect summoning. Then, he looked around to make sure no one was stumbling by though the park late at night. Apparently, no help also meant that he wasn't even allowed to summon his Servant from in the house, so he had come to a small Park in the City, where the Ley Lines were surprisingly strong. He wouldn't have any chance of winning, save for relying on a powerful Servant, unskilled as he was in magecraft, so he couldn't leave anything to chance.

He had spent the last year crying tears of blood for his training, sometimes literally as he pushed himself beyond his limits and payed a price. Still, his circuits were withered, atrophied from a life spent ignoring them. Eight circuits that were still usable without risking his life, and not at a very high quality either, were all he had to power his Thaumaturgy.

A single year's experience in magecraft was hardly enough time for him to do more than study specific spells and techniques he could use for the sake of the war, and even then he could not master them.

The basics of material transmutations, a passable ability with mental interference magecraft, the knowledge of how to create a weak familiar, and a simple couple of tricks with his water affinity that might be able to take a normal human down... if they were caught by surprise. That was all he had to work with beyond some basic Formalcraft that he could use his books to double check on.

Even so, it would have to do.

Most of the other masters would have years more experience than him, many times the prana output, and a catalyst to summon a powerful hero, but even so, he wouldn't give up. Sakura was counting on him, and he would never forgive himself if he failed her.

If he could just save her; if he could save even just that one life in this conflict, that was all he could wish for. To see her smile again, to see her reunited with her sister and mother, he would put his life on the line.

Kariya stepped back from his circle, having checked it for the fourth time. It would do.

"Silver and iron to the origin. Gem and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone. The ancestor is my great master Schweinorg." He honestly had no idea why the aria for the summoning was worded the way it was. He didn't even know who Schweinorg was.

"The alighted wind becomes a wall. The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three-forked road that leads to the kingdom circulate. Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Repeat every five times. Simply, shatter once filled." Really, he would bet some idiot off the street could manage to summon a servant by accident without the aria if they had a circle near by and met the requirements to be a master. Still, best to go for the traditional route if he wanted to be safe.

"――――I announce. Your self is under me, my fate is in your sword. In accordance with the approach of the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer." The light emanating from the summoning circle had become bright enough to nearly blind, and Kariya was forced to close his eyes as he finished the chant from memory.

"Here is my oath. I am the one who becomes all the good of the world of the dead, I am the one who lays out all the evil of the world of the dead. You, seven heaven's clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance ―――!"

White light filled the night and turned it briefly to day, with wind howling across the park, threatening to knock Kariya over simply for being too close. The noise was such that he became deaf, the light that he became blind, and the sensation of prana such that he thought he might burn his circuits out before even entering the war.

And then there was silence and darkness once more.

Kariya opened his eyes, and looked upon a tan man with white hair, standing in the middle of his circle. The man wore armor of a strange black material, covered in places by an oddly abbreviated red overcoat that was laced in place by metal bands and a single rope. Somehow though, it worked on the man.

The man gave him an odd look, as though confused by what he saw, before shrugging. "Servant Caster, oddly enough, responding to your summons. I ask of you, are you my master?"

Standing in the presence of a Servant, a Heroic Spirit granted flesh once more in the land of the living, Kariya found himself barely able to stand straight. Or was that the prana depletion? "Yes," he managed to choke out.

Caster nodded his acceptance. "Then, I suppose I'll be working with you for a bit. Still, you must be quite the interesting magus to have been able to summon me, and to know to do so from this park of all places. Might I ask the name of my Master?"

Kariya almost smacked himself for forgetting. "Right, I am Matou Kariya, pleased to meet you, Caster," he said, bowing low before holding out his hand.

Caster shot him an indecipherable look, before seeming to shrug again and gripping his hand once and releasing it. "I assume that you have some place for us to set up other than this park?"

"Ah, yes." Kariya nodded. "I was going to rent out a hotel room in the city to stay at for the duration." It wasn't as though Zouken would allow him into the mansion with a Servant, especially Caster, even if he wanted to stay there.

Caster seemed to consider it for a moment, thinking over the situation. After a minute of quiet contemplation... "That should do for now at least, provided you're using an alias. I'm not sure how my Territory creation abilities work just yet, so I'm unsure if I'll need a larger space for it or not, but the hotel room will work for while you recover from summoning me."

Kariya flinched at the comment of aliases; he hadn't thought of that. Then he let his mind catch up to what all Caster had said, including... "Wait, how could you not know how your own abilities would work?"

Caster managed to look slightly sheepish, scratching the back of his head. "Well, my abilities are most suited to Saber or Archer, maybe Assassin. I'm probably as well suited for Lancer as for Caster as well, for all that I am a magic user. Generally, someone would be summoning a spirit far more qualified for the Caster class than me, and I wasn't so much of a proper magus in life."

In other words, Kariya had somehow managed to summon a Servant into the wrong class container, one that he would be fully unsuited to. Perhaps he shouldn't have waited quite as long as he had, and he could have summoned his servant as a class that would suit him properly.

Too late for those thoughts now.

He hung his head and sighed his defeat. He obviously wasn't meant to win this war, or Zouken would have gone to greater lengths to help him. All he could rely on was a powerful Servant, but even that, he seemed to have messed up.

"Hey," Caster cut into his depressing thoughts. "Quit thinking that you got a worthless Servant, or whatever it is that's going through your head right now." Kariya looked up to the cocky smile of his Servant. "I Assure you, even if my class is an odd choice, you've summoned one of the best Servants you could get here." At least one of them was confident. "The fact that I'm Caster might decrease my direct combat abilities, but you somehow managed to summon me from a location that gave me an interesting boost. Besides which, being Caster helps my Reinforcement abilities enough that I should be able to hold my own just fine."

Kariya felt a slight smile slip onto his face. Here he was, having managed to summon a Servant, even if things weren't ideal, and the first thing Caster needed to do was try to cheer him up. "Well, I'll give you one thing, Caster." Caster tilted his head to the side a bit and motioned him to go on. "I must have summoned one of the kindest of Heroes, for you to go out of your way to try to cheer me up so much."

Caster's face twitched before he seemed to break into a coughing fit, covering his face. How odd.

Kariya bowed low again. "Allow me to try to do this properly then. I am Matou Kariya, and I have summoned you to help me win this war. I'm next to untrained, my Circuits are mostly either withered to nothing or nearly crippled from almost two decades of disuse, and I'm estranged enough from my family that they're as likely to try to kill me as help me, even if I'm officially representing them. Even so, I'll do my best to support you however I can."

He stood back up straight, and looked Caster in the eye as proudly as he could.

Caster promptly went to spirit form.

"Oh come on!" Kariya shouted.

Caster's mirthful voice echoed in his ears. "Don't worry, I'm still here. I'm just reducing my prana upkeep. Get yourself to your hotel room before you collapse, and we can start planning things tomorrow morning."

Kariya shook his head at the whole situation, and wondered to himself just what sort of Hero he had summoned. A Caster who would work best as Saber or Archer? And he didn't seem to act quite like how he had imagined a Heroic Spirit would act. He'd ask his Servant who he was in the morning. For now, he needed to start thinking up ideas for aliases to use at the hotel.

* * *

Ryuunosuke Uryuu found himself pressed up against one of the walls of the sewer, an enormous sword held at his neck by the demonically armored figure in white and red. "H-h-hey, no need to get like that mister demon!" he backpedaled just as quick as he could, wondering how he had already messed things up right after meeting the demon he'd tried to summon. "All I did was offer you a kid! I thought that was an appropriate sort of sacrifice for demons and all, honest."

An androgynous voice rang out from the great horned helmet of the demon. "There is no point in the killing of a child. Where is the challenge, the glory of defeating a powerful foe? You might as well kill chickens if that is enough for you."

Ryuunosuke paused in his panic, and seriously considered that. "Well," he started, "I thought the challenge was in getting into the family house, killing the father, and then dragging the family into the sewers without their neighbors even noticing." Feeling more confident with his explanation, he continued it. "Then, hiding the murder becomes the next part of the challenge, and that won't work if the kid survives, now will it?"

"And offering to let me 'eat him'?" the demon insisted harshly, though while dropping him back to the ground.

Again, he bowed his head and forced himself to think. He wasn't quite used to doing that outside of planning for a murder, or planning for removing the evidence of the murder. "I just... kind of wanted to see how a demon would kill him. Also, most stories have demons demanding sacrifices and killing their summoners if there isn't one handy, so it was insurance to prevent you from killing me out of hand, I guess."

The demon stared at him hard through its helmet's two thin eye slits, revealing a pair of shadowed emerald green eyes within. How odd, he thought, that a demon should have such lovely eyes, even if they did seem brutal. The demon moved its sword, and the tremendous weapon vanished into the air by some strange magic. "Acceptable, I suppose. However, I shall not have a Master who acts the fool, or who demeans himself or me by his actions. I am Servant Berserker, and my sword will lead us to glorious battle, and wondrous slaughter in the fight for the Holy Grail."

Ryuunosuke looked on at the figure in awe. Wondrous slaughter? Would this demon show him something that would make his heart beat faster still then? "I don't quite get what this Holy Grail thing is, but if you'll show me how to make murder and death more wonderful, I'm in!"

And thus began a simple murderer's journey to becoming a warrior who would seek glory and pleasure on the battlefield, learning to love the thrill of an enemy trying to kill him, even as he sought to kill them. Truly, he would later think, there was no better way to see death than when two people danced hand in hand to kill one another, and where only the strongest would walk away.

* * *

– Wise Up! –

-Servant Caster-

Master: Matou Kariya

True Name: Emiya Shirou

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 187 cm/ 78 kg

Alignment: Neutral Good

Strength: D (E)

Endurance: D (E)

Agility: C (D)

Magical Energy: A+ (B+)

Luck: B (C)

NP: Unlimited Blade Works

*All stats are currently ranked down due to lack of Prana from Kariya. Can operate at full power if willing to burn through personal reserves, which are admittedly fairly high, but would then require longer to recover without the use of a superior source of Prana, such as a Formalcraft Circle drawing mana from atop a ley line.

**Some Skills and Class Abilities receive a bonus due to having been summoned at the site of the Fuyuki fire which created the existence known as Emiya Shirou.

Class Abilities:

Territory Creation: EX**

The ability to create an area more favorable for one as a Magus. At this level, reality itself is overwritten in a localized area based on the user's internal world. An altered use of Caster's Noble Phantasm, the reality marble "Unlimited Blade Works", mixed with the class ability of Territory Creation being naturally at A+ rank as a caster allows this ability to become an EX ranked ability. Removes the restrictions of Gaia and Alaya within the territory, replacing them with similar ones imposed and controlled by EMIYA.

Tool Creation: A+ (Swords only, other weapons reduced to A, non-weapons reduced to B)**

Allows the creation of tools that carry magical energy. At this level, can be used to reproduce even noble phantasms if they are fully understood at full power, up to those of a rank equal to the skill. Requires access to an appropriate amount of prana and time to complete items.

Personal Skills:  
Clairvoyance: B**

Vision. Allows clear vision of distant objects, and improves body movement and vision. At this rank, allows for the piercing of most concealment, and can allow for seeing through solid objects.

Magic: B**

Knowledge of orthodox magic. The exact strength of this ability is unknown. Increased by Caster Class and Summoning location.

Mind's Eye (True): B

Insight fostered by training. A "combat logic" that allows for calm analysis of the situation and the enemy's ability in spite of danger, and consideration of all possible actions in a particular

situation. If there is even a 1% chance of a comeback, this ability greatly improves the chances of success.

Independent Action: C**

Ability that allows independent movement even after a Master's magical energy supply is cut off. With rank C, it is possible for the Servant to stay in this world for one day without a master.

-Servant Berserker-

Master: Ryuunosuke Uryuu

True Name: ?

Sex: ?

Height/Weight: 154 cm/ 42 kg

Alignment: ?

Strength: B(A)

Endurance: B+(A+)

Agility: C(B)

Magical Energy: C+(B+)

Luck: E(D)

NP: ?

Class Abilities:

Magic Resistance: A

Cancels any magic below A rank. In practice, no magi today are able to harm Berserker.

Madness Enhancement: B

When activated, all parameters are enhanced, but sanity is lost. (Madness stats)

Skills:

?


	3. Chapter two: Start from Zero

Author Notes: Last chapter before getting to the start of the war. Things should get a bit more exciting around then.

Now, answering a few questions that popped up in reviews, if you don't care, feel free to skip down a bit:

Berserker's Sanity: Yes, Madness enhancement is something that can be turned on or off. Illya never turned it off on Hercules in the fifth grail war, but it mentioned her shackling his mind as a spiteful punishment at one point, if I recall correctly. This Berserker will only activate Madness Enhancement during a fight, and only when either becoming too angry, or enjoying the fight too much. Other than that, she'll likely be a bit more easy to upset, and so be trying to keep a firmer hold on her emotions when not comfortable showing them to someone. Also, yes, everyone has guessed who Berserker is already. Fun times will be had with a scene where she and Kirei have a talk, as with her and Saber being in the same war, with EMIYA there to ensure the Havoc is Maximized.

As for why I switched the normal Caster for this Berserker rather than just having him become a Berserker? Honestly I just wanted to throw in something extra that was different to make the story a bit less likely to be a carbon copy of any similar ideas that may or may not be floating around somewhere. That and the character interaction will be quite fun. It had been this idea, or having Kariya summon our new Berserker and seeing Gilles de Rais freak out. Pure funny lost out however to the more serious idea.

EMIYA's changes: -TLDR: Lots-

Stats are altered due to class being changed to Caster, but some skills were kept or enhanced due to his being summoned within spitting distance of where he collapsed during the Fuyuki Fire as a child. Also, I'm having it be that EMIYA himself changes even though he shouldn't by canon, as a way to explain just how extreme his depression and self loathing became after becoming a Counter Guardian, despite "Dying with a smile" before hand. By canon, though he keeps unordered knowledge which he can access from the records, he doesn't actually get memories from his actions as either a CG or Servant, same as any other Heroic Spirit. The reasoning for this was that they were supposed to be kept outside of the time line to prevent themselves from changing from the 'perfected state' that allowed them to become a Heroic Spirit, or something like that.

As he has changed where no other normal Heroic Spirit does, he had to be finding some way to cheat - with Unlimited Blade Works, of course. Thus, he has memories of his time during the Fate/Stay Night game's three routes, with the 'Good End' on UBW actually being the most recently experienced from his point of view. He doesn't have memories from beyond when he was taken out of the war in the Fate and Heaven's Feel Routes, save for whatever he might have learned on any runthroughs of the Fate route where he might have managed to survive slightly longer while faking his death after the Berserker Fight. By the end of the UBW route, Archer had reconciled with some of his problems, and thus could be reclassified as Good aligned, even if he'll have relapses to True Neutral fairly regularly when in serious combat.

The combination of the 'retaining true memories of summonings' and 'being summoned in the ideal location' are part of why he has an Independent Action Skill despite not being an Archer as well. The Grail is treating it as having become a personal skill for him now, though at a low rank. Also, the Wiki mentions the connection that the Grail War has with the third magic might allow Servants to keep some of their memories of being summoned regardless.

Finally, as for having outlines vs. not? Yes, I have basic outlines of where I want a story to go. Nearly all of my stories are derailed by the characters however at some point or another, though never quite as bad as when I DM a table top game.

Incidentally, EMIYA is terrible at naming things.

Now back to the story.

* * *

The fourth Holy Grail War.

It was this war which created him; which orphaned him and killed the child he might have been to give birth to Emiya Shirou. It was this war that lost Illya her parents, and doomed her to becoming the fifth war's lesser grail; doomed to die even if she survived the war.

This war had ended in fire and death, leaving hundreds dead... or worse.

Arch- no, it was Caster this time, and didn't that feel odd? Caster was sitting outside of the small, nondescript inn that his new Master had found for them, going over what he could remember hearing about the fourth Grail War. It wasn't all that much.

For one thing, he knew nothing about his current Master, other than his name. Presumably, he was some relative of Sakura's who hadn't lived through the Fourth War in Caster's own time-line. He had this nagging feeling in the back of his head when he thought about that fact, though he couldn't figure out what it was from.

He had never paid much attention to learning more about history that didn't concern him directly back then, leaving such things to Rin. Add to that the length of time it had been for him, and he had barely been able to remember Rin the first time she summoned him for the fifth grail war. He could have simply used the married blades to look back at his past, but he had stubbornly refused, not wanting to be reminded of how he was in his past.

Getting torn apart by Berserker had knocked some sense into him about that, at least.

He no longer had such reservations obviously – for all that he still found his younger self frustratingly naive and dense – but he hadn't been so diligent in making sure to record all of his memories and history into his blades until shortly before he had left the clock tower. He was able to find vague recollections of some things, and crystal clear memories of others from that time period.

After meditating on his blades for a few minutes, he had ordered his knowledge of the Fourth War as best he could: Obviously, Saber was here, acting as the Servant of his father. Gilgamesh was this war's Archer, and he remembered being incensed when he had found out about some of the atrocities committed by that war's Caster.

If he had been summoned in place of that Caster though, that wouldn't happen, and even if he didn't have Discernment of the Poor, he was sure Kariya wasn't the murderer who had summoned the original Caster. So his knowledge, minimal though it was, was already possibly skewed by his summoning. The only other things he had learned about this war had been related to what had happened to his father.

Not much to go on, but he wasn't coming in completely blind unless every Servant had somehow been switched out or something absurd like that. More likely, this time-line's Alaya had decided to preempt the potential danger of the previous Caster by having him summoned in that class.

That all meant that Gilgamesh was the biggest threat, outside of the corrupted grail itself. At full power, he could act as a counter to Gilgamesh – especially as Caster rather than Archer – but he couldn't count on being at full power with Kariya as his Master. That meant he needed to find an alternate source of Prana before he could risk serious confrontations, or abuse his Item Creation abilities and Territory Creation abilities as Caster.

He couldn't simply stay on the defensive though. Not if he wanted to have a chance to save anyone. The War, left to its own devices, would find some way to ruin lives, simply by its nature. He needed to be able to run interference while he figured out how to fix things for the most people he could.

That really settled what he needed to do first, while he waited for the War to be officially started. He stood, and walked into the kitchen of the inn, setting up a small bounded field to start creating a small Territory. He needed to have a space to work on experimenting with his Item Creation ability, and what place was better for him to create in than a kitchen?

* * *

Kariya woke up disoriented, finding himself in an unfamiliar room. Blinking back his sleep, his memories from the previous night came back to him; summoning his Servant, and checking in at an old inn using hypnosis to prevent questions.

Speaking of Caster, Kariya wondered where he'd gotten off to. Then again, it would get awfully boring just watching him sleep, and Servants didn't typically need to sleep themselves. Shrugging the issue off for the moment, Kariya quickly cleaned himself and got dressed for the day, before checking his link to Caster to track him down.

He followed the thread of prana out of the room and down a hall, towards... the kitchens? That wasn't quite where he expected to find Caster, but who was he to judge? Reaching the kitchen and spending a small amount of prana to convince a couple of the staff that he was permitted inside, he opened the doors, and walked in.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't to find himself being led to an apparently empty corner of the room, by an outdated stove that looked to have been replaced recently. Curious all over again, he stepped forward to the stove-

-And found himself stepping into a sweltering forge. The room was far larger than the kitchen behind him had been, with giant gears turning in the walls and ceiling above a blacksmith's workshop. Swords littered the hard packed earth around him, and more weapons sat on the walls, seeming to outline the space in steel.

Before him, Caster stood, shaping a sword that was different from the ordinary slabs of steel around him. Kariya couldn't quite see it, and it was clearly not yet done, but it had a definite feel of power to it.

Caster paused in his work, and the sword he'd been working on wavered and vanished. He turned to face Kariya with a smile. "Ah, I see you're awake, Master. Did you need something?"

Kariya snapped himself out of his stupor, reminding himself of why he had come. "Right, you mentioned planning last night. I figured we could talk now that I'm awake and not falling over from Prana depletion."

Caster nodded, and projected a chair to sit in. "Right then," he started, gesturing to a second projected chair. "Based on what you said last night, I'm going to assume that you're not going to be able to support me much in combat."

Kariya hung his head. "Just about any magus will be able to take me out within a mater of minutes. Sorry for being such a burden."

Caster rolled his eyes. "That's fine though; Fighting is a Servant's job, so you aren't actually at as big of a disadvantage for that as you might think. Our biggest problem is going to be the fact that you don't have the prana capacity to support me at full strength right now. That means we have to be a bit more careful about things, and that I'll need more time to recover after serious fights. Other than that though, what are you good at?"

Kariya had to think for a moment, before he shrugged. "Photography, journalism, and maybe first aid. I've done some work as an EMT before, and I freelance as a reporter when I need extra money. I don't see where any of that will be helpful in a war though."

Caster leaned back, and crossed his legs. "Then you can work on keeping us up to date on anything strange in the city. Talk to people you know, and see if you can't dig up rumors on what the competition might be up to. Maybe figure out a way to monitor our enemies. Other than that, try to find somewhere we can set up that's a bit more permanent – I can work here some, but it's not going to work for my full Territory. Maybe see if we can't set up somewhere with a powerful Ley-line."

"I'll see what I can do." Kariya was just happy to have something to make him feel useful, all things considered. "I'll try to get you the names of as many of the other Masters as I can find, and I'll check on the places in the city we could set up at." With a bit of hesitation, he added "...Thanks for this."

As Kariya was walking away, Caster called out to him "Out of curiosity, what are you doing this for?"

To this, there was only one answer he could give, and Kariya said with conviction, "I have someone I need to save."

Caster turned back to his swords, an odd expression twisting his features, and the sound of metal striking metal carried itself to Kariya's ears until he left the Territory.

* * *

A salary man woke up with his head pounding. Had he been drinking last night? He tried to get to his feet, only to find that he was laying on concrete with his hands bound. Panicking, his eyes flew open, and what he saw terrified him.

He was in a cell. Somehow, between the previous night and... whenever _now_ was, he had been thrown in a cell that smelled of blood and decay. It was like a sewer that someone had been dumping bodies in, and a small treacherous voice in the back of his head was screaming at him that he was going to be the next one.

He had heard the missing persons reports that had been going about, and had listened to people talking about a mass murderer in the city, but he hadn't really paid attention. People did horrible things all the time, and other people died as a result. It was just how the world was.

He hadn't thought he was at risk though. It hadn't been quite real to him, with young women and children being the majority of the victims. He wasn't a family man, so he was supposed to be safe from the psycho.

Still paralyzed with fear, he nearly missed the cell door slamming open to reveal a heavily armored figure. Nearly, being the key word.

As the white and red armored figure walked towards him, he hurriedly tried to wiggle his way away from it, reduced to trying to get away by any means he had. Then a voice rang out from the demonic knight.

"Stand." The command wasn't something he could resist, and he found himself managing to make it to his feet despite his bindings. "Do you want to live?" It asked him.

Was it actually here to save him? Yet then why were his instincts telling him that this creature was _dangerous_ to him? He found his voice and asked "W-what's going on?"

The figure glared at him with it's piercing green eyes, and he could feel the disapproval it held for his question. "Do you want to live?" It asked again.

"Yes!" he shouted. A thousand times yes, he wanted to live.

The Knight tossed him a sword. "You've been kidnapped by a murderer. Kill him, and you live. Fail, and he'll kill you."

He bent over to reach the sword, realizing his hands were still bound. Looking back up to ask for help, he saw that the Knight was gone, leaving the door open. How someone wearing so much metal could possibly move so fast was beyond him, but he wasn't in any state to consider it. He fell next to the sword, and began sawing through the ropes binding his arms.

Freed, he yanked the sword up from the ground, and carefully started out of the cell.

And so the hunt began.

* * *

Ryuunosuke Uryuu wiped his sword on a cloth, looking down at the body of the man below him with a sort of euphoria. Behind him, Berserker watched him with a critical eye. "Your form was terrible," Berserker commented, as critical as it had been since he had summoned it the previous night. Even so, he couldn't possibly object after having been shown how great it could feel to fight someone trying to kill him back.

"I'm self taught," he replied, hardly able to stop himself from giggling. He was bleeding from a few places where the Salary-man had gotten lucky, and he had only survived due to the reflexes he'd developed over the course of many murders. It was simply so different, fighting an opponent who was coming for him too, armed and ready to kill him.

He didn't think he'd ever be able to go back.

He held out the sword, now wiped clean, to his side, and the small boy took it from him before hurrying back behind Berserker. He was still getting used to the 'Squire' that Berserker had insisted on turning the almost-sacrifice into, but he had to admit that it was nice to have help cleaning up after a kill.

He spun on the balls of his feet and leaned towards Berserker with a manic grin. "That. Was. Awesome!" he shouted, finally unable to contain himself. He couldn't tell through the helmet, but he felt as though his new teacher was smiling at him. "What are we going to do next?"

Berserker waved over to some sticks in a corner of the room. "I'll be training you in the basics so that you aren't as much of an embarrassment next time. First though, we need to take care of your fallen foe; you don't provide much Prana on your own, so we'll be putting him in the circle I drew earlier. Everyone you beat like this, we'll toss in to improve my reserves. It will only work within a few minutes of the kill, so start moving him."

"I really don't understand too well, so I guess this is a demon thing?" he happily asked as he pranced over to the body. The Salary-man looked like he might even still be alive, though not for much longer with the hole in his gut. Ryuunosuke shrugged and picked the man up, putting his back into moving him to a carved mess of symbols in a circle.

"Done!" he shouted energetically, eagerly skipping back to where Berserker held a pair of long sticks. Catching the one tossed to him, he tried out a few poses, before settling into something that didn't feel too awkward.

Berserker walked over to him, and slapped his legs into a slightly different stance, lifted his arms, and then shifted his back. "Better." Berserker then walked back a few paces and turned. "Now, defend yourself!"

As Ryuunosuke's world became pain for the foreseeable future, the young boy looked on in a mix of terror, and a gleeful sort of satisfaction, seeing his family's murderer beaten about mercilessly with a tree-branch. Then he pulled out his dagger, and started moving through the simple form that the Armored Lady had shown him while the Murderer found his Prey. Maybe some day, he'd be strong like Her, and not have to worry about people like the Murderer.

* * *

Kariya's first action in his quest for knowledge was fairly straight forward, for all that it would take some time to finish: He walked down to one of the local newspaper's offices and purchased the backlog of the last month's papers, while getting a subscription to be delivered to his post box. He could scan through the papers later in the day and get a feel for if anything unusual was going on that might be linked to the War.

Tracking down some of his old colleagues wasn't too difficult from there either, but convincing them to give him tips on anything they heard was... trickier. All of the conversations tended to be a varriation of the same script:

Kariya would find them, and say "Hey, I haven't seen you for a while. How have things been going since I've been out of the loop?"

The colleague would take a moment to place him, smile, and say "Oh, Kariya, what a pleasant surprise! Things have been hectic the last month or two, but other than that, same old grind. What brings you around here?"

Kariya would admit to needing a good source of information, trying to phrase it in a way that didn't sound like he'd be stealing their story out from under them. Something along the lines of "Well, I'm wanting to get back into the business in a bit, but I'm rusty as heck from my year's absence. Mind sharing any juicy rumors and stories you get early on so I can practice on them? I promise I won't try to publish anything, and I'll even offer any ideas or insights I have on it in return; no need to cite me."

The colleague would hem and haw over the idea that he could sell the information to others in the field, but acknowledge that he was good with finding unusual angles that they might miss sometimes. Some would refuse based on contract, others would accept if he agreed to edit their write ups too some of the time, and others just promised to throw him extra scraps that either weren't big scoops, or that they didn't have time to follow up on.

To round things out with the other journalists and reporters, he'd found someone who liked focusing on Celebrities a bit more than most, and had developed excellent stalker skills. He'd offered them the tidbit that some notable foreigners might be showing up in the city soon, trying to stay low key, and asked that he be told anything that they could give him on foreigners acting strange.

Over all, it had been a lot of work for what might be very little returns, but he felt better for having done something for preparation for the Grail War. Finishing with that, he broke out the back log and started reading.

A few papers in, and his better mood had soured with a terrible haste.

There was a murderer on the loose. A _Mass_ murderer who people had been calling a demon, and who had apparently been leaving occult symbols around some of his kills. Something that could easily be explained by a careless and corrupt Magus trying to collect extra prana for their Servant through the fastest method available to them.

The worst of it though was that most of the victims so far had been children. He stowed his papers and headed down to the police station. It was time to brush off the old journalist's hat and do some investigating.

* * *

Caster finished the sword he was working on, and allowed it to be recorded in Unlimited Blade Works. It wasn't as powerful as many of his collection, but it was the first original sword he had made, mixing and matching traits and properties of various other weapons into something new.

Maybe it was just his new Class influencing him, but he could all but see different opportunities spreading out before him in the form of countless blades, each with their own new trick to catch opponents off guard. He would certainly be abusing his chance to utilize the Caster Class's Item Creation ability to its fullest to expand on his armory's utility as well. Daggers that could track a target when placed over a map, swords that could cut through the distance separating him from his destination, and others were only the tip of the iceberg of things he had planned.

It would have been easy for him to lose track of himself and simply _Create_ more and more swords, if not for his constant awareness of the dangers that the War would subject people to. Even so, until the war started getting under way, or his Master gave him some current information to work with, there wasn't much to do that would be more useful than what he was doing. And so he indulged himself some.

His first new sword was a homage to his more frequent Master; Tohsaka Rin. He had based the properties of the blade on the gandr spell that Rin had always favored, and pulled a bit from the curse on Gáe Bolg, among other bits and pieces. The result was a cursed blade that would reach out to weaken and sicken those it was swung at, slowly chipping away at their strength without needing to draw blood, yet never able to kill no matter how deep the wound.

He couldn't help but wonder what it said about him that his first instinct for his original creation was a curse though.

Over all though, it was still a first attempt, and he didn't yet have the prana to burn on something truly spectacular, so he'd gone with something efficient. As a Fake Noble Phantasm, it would rank as a 'C' at best, and copies of it would be degraded to 'D' ranks, but it had potential to be useful in a fight with anyone with low Magic Resistance or Luck. An actual hit, even a scratch from it, would probably let him bypass Magic Resistance too, at least to a point.

Now, all he needed was a name. He looked at the short, thorn like blade, close in length to Kanshou and Bakuya, but closer to a gladius in style. It was a wickedly sharp blade meant for stabbing and cutting alike, and was wreathed with an ominous black mist of magical sickness, sure to make opponents uneasy and wary of it. Yet, in a sense, it was intended to allow him to fight opponents with the option of _not_ killing them through overwhelming force. Something that gave an impression of being violent and hurtful, and then turned around and was nice, even while denying the fact...

It really was a good homage to Rin. Ultimately, he was finding himself stuck between making a Tsundere joke, and trying to give it a name that fit a sword. Perhaps something like _Sword of Denial_? It sounded like a proper weapon name, and it fit it's property of sapping an enemy's strength – Denying them a fair fight, or denying them their power either way – yet it was still a private joke for him.

It wasn't as though it really needed a name, but all of his most powerful blades held names, and it somehow seemed right to name his creations. Deciding he could always revisit the naming options later if he needed to, he sent his new sword into an astral state, ready to be called later on.

He was just about to start work on his next attempt when he felt Kariya returning through his link. With a sigh of resignation, he stepped away from his forge, and waited for his Master to arrive, hopefully with something to show for his hours of work.

When Kariya entered the temporary Territory, Caster noted that he appeared distinctly agitated. He had seen his new Master depressed, confused, depressed, hopeful, depressed again, and determined. Yet he hadn't actually seen him fuming like this. From what little he'd seen of his Master, he had a bad feeling that the only things that would get him angry would be similar to things that would have set his own younger self on a war path.

Kariya looked him in the eye, and said "There's a mass murderer killing kids and leaving occult marking behind at some of the scenes. He's been doing this for about a month or two, though they haven't found the markings or the bodies in the most recent week or so."

Well, that was succinct. "Am I to assume then, Master, that we will be hunting this killer? Given the timing, I suspect it will be another Master and their Servant."

"I already assumed that was a possibility," Kariya confirmed, "but that doesn't matter. I can't let myself sit idly by in this situation; not if I have the power to help. You're a Hero, so you understand already, right?"

He did, even if he was only a fake Hero. In fact, it was probably because he was a fake Hero that he understood so perfectly. The words of his younger self echoed in his ears once more: _There's no way that wanting to help people can be a mistake._ Well, what could it hurt?

Caster shrugged. "Hm, what a troublesome Master I have. It would appear that we have our first target then. I'll start putting something together to help out, though we still need a proper base of operations."

Kariya nodded. "There are two main places that would work from a prana standpoint: The temple on Mount Enzou, which would be much to obvious even if it would be highly defensible for proper magi, or the area around City Hall. Luckily, there's a residential area right near by City Hall, and some basic hypnosis isn't outside of my abilities. If I can encourage a family to leave for vacation for the week or something, we'll be able to set up as the caretakers."

Caster paused for a moment as a thought struck him. He was technically about to go home to the neighborhood he had grown up in before the fire. He smiled and nodded, hoping his amusement didn't show too much. "As you wish, Master." Fate was having all sorts of fun with him for this war, wasn't it?


End file.
